Gasping for AirM Alan Roberts

The sun was beating down on me something fierce when I looked up and saw a white van coming down the dirt road. There's never any
traffic here. I had been taking an afternoon break in the garden, getting some
watermelon plants into the ground. I noticed a decal on the passenger door when
I looked up. My first thought was that it was a government van carrying
police inside, coming to raid my home. It wasn't though. The decal read Ty
Cobb Home Medical Supply. For this trip, it was loaded with oxygen tanks, and
a new walker, for my neighbour, Roy. Hes 73 years old and in really bad shape
physically.

Roy had just returned from the hospital, again, earlier in
the day. The night before, he showed up in my driveway at 4:00 AM, sounding his
horn. I wrapped my blanket around me and walked outside to see what he needed.
I wasn't wearing shoes and it was dark. My eyes weren't focused yet and I kept
scanning the ground thinking that I was about to step on a hellish hill of fire
ants. As I was approaching Roy's car, he informed me that he was having a
stroke. He said he had fallen all over the house and that his left arm and
hip were without feeling. He told me that he was having trouble breathing.

I was already on the way back inside as he was finishing
his sentence. Dialing 911, I heard him out in the driveway throwing up. On my
way back out, I placed the phone right next to the door so that I would hear it
if the dispatcher needed to call me back. Its easy to get lost trying to find
this place. Its about a mile down a dirt road past a set of 10 chicken
houses. As I approached the car again, Roy told me that he was spitting up
something like hot salt water. He was able to talk clearly and he didn't seem
like he was in that bad of shape to me at least not like someone suffering a
stroke. Still, he said that his whole life side was numb and without strength.

Roy used his still-strong right hand to reach into his
pocket and pull out a pack of Wildhorse cigarettes. He fired one up as he told
me he was having trouble breathing. I didn't even bother to say the obvious. I
figure hes not gonna be around that much longer anyway. Whats the point
really? After about 15 minutes, I heard the engine on the ambulance as it was
coming down the road. I also saw the headlights were directed into the driveway
of the house directly up the road from me. I told Roy to hang on a minute - I
had to get my shoes on so that I could go and direct them.

My feet protected from hungry fire ants and sharp
rocks, I walked to the end of my driveway, waved of my arms back and forth over
my head, almost lost my blanket, and shouted out to them to get their
attention. I saw the ambulance begin to move, maneuvering its way to turn
around in the neighbours driveway. I walked back to Roy's car to wait with
him. Two young paramedics went through the motions with Roy, placed him in the
back of the transport vehicle, thanked me and then were gone.

Roy had just got back home about an hour before I saw the
white van coming down the road. I watched as the oxygen man introduced himself
to Roy and Roy's friend, Cricket, who was helping him. I walked over to my
fence and waited because I knew he'd be coming to the rear of his van. When he
did, I hollered out to him and asked if anybody could order some oxygen if they
wanted it. I told him I like to breathe straight oxygen now and then that it
pumps my cells up and makes them feel good. He told me no said that oxygen
was a prescription item only. He told me that he believed that O2 was readily
available to the general public in Japan, but not here in the US.

I went back over to the garden and resumed of my watermelon
duties. But then I got to thinking about what he had said. I kept glancing
over at Roy's place and waited for the time to be right to talk to the oxygen
man some more. I walked back over to the fence when I saw him heading back for
the van. Doing my best act stupid, I asked him if there was oxygen in the air
that we breathe. He said that there was. I asked him if he knew the percentage
of our atmosphere that is comprised of oxygen. His forehead wrinkled a bit and
he ventured a guess: 21%. Rather impressive, he was right.

I asked him if he had ever heard of oxygen junkies or maybe people who illegally dealt oxygen on the black market. I asked him if
oxygen gave people a buzz or something like that. He said that he had never
heard of anything like that and sort of laughed a bit. So, I reiterated. I
asked him again if he was sure that a doctors prescription was necessary in
order to get a tank of oxygen. He said that he was quite sure indeed. I
glanced up at the porch where Roy was sitting and saw him lighting up another
Wildhorse cigarette.

The oxygen man seem to think that I was a bit strange. If
he only knew! He walked back up to the porch where Roy was, having retrieved
some of the sterile plastic nose clips used to deliver the O2 from the tanks.
Roy paid attention to him as he was describing the proper procedure for
operation of the tanks. I found it highly odd that a dying man would continue
to puff away at a cigarette as these instructions were given. I saw him nodding
his head in agreement with what the oxygen man was telling him.

After the oxygen man had finished his duties, he packed up
his van, closed it up, got inside and headed down the driveway towards the
road. The only way out of this dead end road is to turn left and go past my
property again. As he did so, I stood up from my watermelon hill creation,
looked directly at him and gave him a big friendly wave. I smiled from ear to
ear for him. The oxygen man was a nice enough guy. He, like most, is just a
person doing his job and never really thinks about the bigger picture.

It seems to me that just maybe there's some type of
connection between the United States government, the American Medical
Association, the tobacco industry lobbyists, the FDA, the American Cancer
Society and other such agencies. Hmm, could it be that they are all in
cahoots? Does it make any sense that I could walk into a store and buy a pack
of Wildhorse cigarettes, but I'm unable to get a tank of oxygen? I guess its
just me. Im probably just silly to believe that people should pay more
attention to breathing before they're actually suffocating to death.

M Alan Roberts is a radical thinker. He has a gimlet eye for injustice, much as did Frederich Engels, a century and a half before. Still, Roberts finds a way to write effective SEO copy. This suggests both sides of his brain, his mind, work equally well.